


Trees Rearrange

by voleuse



Category: Battlestar Galactica
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-03
Updated: 2006-05-03
Packaged: 2017-10-04 07:23:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voleuse/pseuds/voleuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Her love was neither cure-all nor catastrophe</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trees Rearrange

**Author's Note:**

> Set after 2.08. Title, summary, and excerpts adapted from Jeredith Merrin's _Shift_.

_How can  
I describe a conversation  
like this one?_

Thrace struts onto _Cloud 9_ like she's a shot of adrenaline, her hips twisting as she strips off her jacket. She hooks it over her shoulder, shakes her hair back, and grins.

D'Anna leans against a crate and watches. It's a slow day, and Bell's covering the Quorum for her. She hasn't got much else on her plate, and certainly nothing urgent. She has time to kill, to consider.

Thrace is looking around now, but it seems without purpose. Her lips curve into a casual smirk, and her fingers drum against her thigh, once.

D'Anna twists her recorder between her fingers, idly contemplates many things.

And Thrace turns her head, and sees D'Anna watching.

Everything follows from there.

_Maybe.  
There are forces we don't see_

The liqueur in her glass is a hazy blue and candy-sweet. D'Anna marvels at the way humans take comfort in triviality. Thrace's drink is a stark gold, her emptied shot glasses staggered across the bar like targets.

D'Anna takes another sip of her cocktail, wrinkles her nose at the way it cloys.

Thrace laughs. "Why drink it?" She gestures at the barkeep, and two more shots slide down the counter.

"Because," D'Anna replies, carefully, "there are days when I don't want to know when I'm drunk."

Thrace slams back her first shot, smiles. She slides her hand over D'Anna's knee.

D'Anna knows when a question is being dodged, but she doesn't really care.

_the strange  
but ordinary way trees rearrange  
shape and color_

Thrace is snoring, her head buried under a pillow. D'Anna smirks from her desk, raises the volume on her computer's speakers by a few increments.

Bell's the audio-visual expert, but she's not bad at pulling together rough cuts. It takes her twenty minutes to sequence her report for tomorrow. She has three interviews pieced together, one agricultural expert and two ordinary citizens, interlaced with footage of Caprica in the spring. She curses the resolution of her monitor, wishes she had a model just six months newer.

"Where'd you get that?" Thrace asks.

D'Anna glances over her shoulder. Thrace is sitting up, her body bared down to the sheet bunched in her lap. She's staring past D'Anna, at the frozen image on the screen.

It's a static shot, she thinks. A small temple outside of Delphi, the sun shining through the trees behind it. It's pretty, but boring.

Thrace looks hollow, and her lips press together.

D'Anna turns in her chair, blocks the screen from view. "Just some footage from the archives. Stock. Nothing important."

"Yeah. Right." Thrace scrubs a hand over her face, and her revealed grin is like flash powder. "So you're working?"

"You were sleeping," D'Anna replies, taking the long three steps from desk to bed. "I didn't know what to do with myself."

Thrace stretches back on the bed, and the sheet slides off the side, forgotten.

_in lieu  
of the usual, a compromise. Go where you  
will, do  
what you can._

Thrace tastes like metal and heat and blood. Like salt and fear.

She tastes familiar, and D'Anna likes that best about her.

Her fists clench against the mattress, and D'Anna imagines her falling.

The muscles of her legs tighten as she arches, and she strangles sound in her throat.

She does not open her eyes, not once.

D'Anna doesn't mind.

She prefers this in solitude, too.

_the scales tipped when she  
touched me, just lightly_

 

When D'Anna emerges from the shower, Thrace is dressed and leaning against the door. She's twirling a cigar between her fingers, but it isn't lit.

Off D'Anna's look, she shrugs. "Didn't want to be rude."

"How considerate." D'Anna discards her towel, pulls on a robe. "Seems unlike you."

Thrace laughs. "Who told you that?"

"A reporter never reveals her sources." She sits on the bed. "Going back to _Galactica_?"

"Almost." She slips the cigar into her pocket. "We're not going to do the awkward thing, right?"

D'Anna snorts. "Absolutely not."

"Good." Thrace reaches for the cigar again, then stops herself. "Um. Thanks."

"My pleasure," D'Anna replies, and stands. She sways forward, slants their lips together.

Thrace smiles against her.

"Next time you're on leave," D'Anna says.

"Maybe," Thrace replies, and before she slips out the door, she winks.

D'Anna doesn't expect to see her again, and she doesn't.


End file.
